And here we are again….Fall semester. We could write something trite such as, “where did the summer go?” But wait! “Where DID the summer go?”

AHTR is very excited about upcoming fall programming on the site. We are close to the debut of the new site!CHIPS-NY has been hard at work tweaking the design which–thanks to their hard work and skill–will allow much clearer site navigation, more streamlined layouts for the lessons plans, and (bonus for us aesthetically-driven art historians) many more images to be front and center. The new site needs a few finishing touches, but we are excited to share it soon.

We were incredibly grateful to receive a second grant in April to complement the Kress Grant–this time from the CUNY Graduate Center’s Doctoral Student Council–which funded three editors who worked tirelessly editing and formatting the lesson plans for clarity and consistency, and who are now hard at work uploading this new content to the site. We are in awe of their skills and their commitment to what is often a tiring and thankless task–so, thank you, AHTR editors Jon Mann, Amy Raffel, and Kaegan Sparks. And thanks also to the many new AHTR lesson plan contributors who made this new content possible.

The new lecture content, which corresponds in great part to the traditional survey of cave painting to cathedrals, will be fully edited and ready for downloading at the same time the new site is launched in the next 4-6 weeks. We’re also expanding the thematic offerings–look out for lesson plans on Race & Identity, Transnationalism & Citizenship, and Feminist Art. We have had a great response to the second Call for Participation and, thanks to the second grant and the hard work of three additional editors, much of the material from this “second round” of lesson plans that are now in the works will hopefully available by the end of Fall semester.

Upcoming posts on the AHTR blog include further reflections on flipping the classroom, a project using GoogleMaps, creating an ESL-centerd syllabus, and a review of My Arts Lab and ArtStor. AHTR Contributing Editors also have much in store: Kimberly James Overdevest will address taking students on Study Abroad programs; Parme Giuntini has a great post on “Hijacking the MOOC,” which will be followed by our third Google Hangout on related discussion; Ginger Spivey will follow-up by scheduling Google Hangouts–one on designing curriculum for AP Art History and another on how AHTR can support K-12 instructors; and Renee McGarry will investigate Art as Communication.

As always, AHTR is open to contributions from the community. Please get in touch if you have an idea for a post. (We encourage posts that follow-up Rebecca Herz’s great essay on changes in the art history discipline.) Please contact any of the four contributing editors (for more information on these editors see this post) or the AHTR deans at teachingarthistorysurvey@gmail.com.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this second year of AHTR. It’s been a real treat to be part of so many people coming together to collaborate in realizing this peer-populated resource.